District Meets With Partners of Excellence

CARES is one of the district’s new initiatives created to meet the needs of students and families. The image shows a CARES team prepping to visit students’ homes.

Partners of Excellence is the district’s initiative to strengthen and enrich the instructional programs in Aldine ISD. At the virtual meeting held on November 17, a dozen partners learned about the district’s new initiatives.

Dr. Escalante introduced the Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Department team. FACE provides additional resources and support to the schools. It empowers families to become stronger advocates for their children, creates opportunities for parents to engage with the Superintendent, and increases school staff capacity.

FACE shared department highlights, which include:

• Back to School Expo
• Campus liaisons
• Biweekly parent training sessions
• Outreach Thursday
• Face mask and book distribution
• FACE Liaisons
• Business Partnerships
• Partners of Excellence
• Food Fair
• Job Opportunities
• Storytime for Families
• Volunteer Programs
• FACE Newsletter
• FACE Resources

Twiana Collier, a director with the FACE, discussed the CARES (Caring About Reaching Every Student) program, which strives to meet students and staff’s needs in the district. 

The goal is to build positive and strong relationships with students, parents, and staff at the campus level. The district goes into the community to connect with students, parents, and staff. The CARES Teams’ primary job is to provide the positive support needed to students and families to succeed in both in-person and virtual environments.

CARES Teams usually consist of three to five employees: counselors, teachers, administrators, librarians, paraprofessionals, social workers, intervention specialists, and at least one bilingual staff member. The team reaches out to students and staff as needed to do well-checks, online check-in, and home visits. These dedicated leaders create incentive plans, activities and provide celebrations to recognize students and staff. The groups address students, parents, and staff members’ specific concerns (e.g., struggling with attendance, students not engaged in learning due to lack of support at home.

ABC Channel 13 recently featured a story about the CARES Team at Hoffman Middle School.

Every initiative aims to strengthen partnerships with our families, communities, and business partners and go into the community and serve.